| ► Toledo Blade – 05/27/01 – Visiting judges’ pay receives scrutiny as irregularities emerge |
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Toledo Blade – May 27, 2001 – Visiting judges’ pay receives scrutiny as irregularities emerge By James Drew and Dale Emch
Special Report
A decades old system of assigning retired judges to work in courts across Ohio will be reformed after a review of records showed that some of these visiting judges – including one from Sylvania double-billed the state for thousands of dollars.
Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, who oversees the state’s visiting judge system, told The Blade that guidelines were being established by the Ohio Supreme Court to correct the problems that led to some judges being paid twice for the same work day.
“We assume that judges are honest [Sure they are!], and I think that is a fair assumption,” Chief Justice Thomas Moyer said.
We also assume that they are good record-keepers, and I think we are not quite as accurate in that assumption,” Chief Justice Thomas Moyer said.
Errors Uncovered
A Blade review of state records and interviews about the retired visiting judge system found:
Since the start of 1998, the state has paid visiting Judge Stephen Yarbrough about $7,000 more than he was entitled to, either because of double-billing or mistakes by the court.
Errors in the use of a computer program the Court began using in July to flag any overbillings by visiting judges has resulted in at least $5,000 in overpayments to seven judges.
Although visiting judges can bill for their services in quarter-day increments rather than by the hour, records show most judges routinely claim a full day’s service when they bill taxpayers.
Visiting judges are counted on to be accurate and honest in filling out their compensation reports because they essentially work on the honor system [unwise decision, right?]. The state’s high court has no way of independently verifying the time the visiting judges put in because they don’t punch time clocks whey they are in court and are allowed to perform some work at home.
The public has no say in the selection of visiting judges because they are appointed by Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, not elected by voters.
The lack of accountability bothers critics of the system.
“If you’re a visiting judge and you decide to do something the prosecutors and police object to, who do you have to answer to?” Lucas County Prosecutor Julie Bates asked. “The rest of us have to answer to the public.”
Despite her reservations about visiting judges, Mrs. Bates said they’re necessary when sitting judges have conflicts of interest or when counties need relief from heavy caseloads.
There are about 70 retired visiting judges statewide, according to the Supreme Court. Retired judges are appointed as visiting judges in counties with high caseloads, and on cases in which judges in some counties have become ill or have recused themselves because the involvement in a case by a local lawyer or public official might cause a conflict of interest.
The appointed judges can’t have been defeated for election to the court to which they’re appointed and are paid a per diem based on what sitting judges earn. A retired visiting common please court judge, for instance, would make $414 a day.
Visiting judges bill for their services in quarter-day increments, but are not allowed to bill for man than one day’s work on any given date – regardless of the number of hours they’ve worked or whether they’ve handled cases in two different counties, Chief Justice Thomas Moyer said.
Sitting judges who are assigned as visiting judges in other venues receive $50 a day in addition to their normal salaries.
That some retired visiting judges apparently have double-billed the state for their services speaks to a lack of oversight with the Supreme Court, critics say.
Supreme Court Justice Alice Resnick, a Democrat from Ottawa Hills, said it’s clear that the system needs to be examined – from how judges are chosen to how they bill for their word.
“I would like to see us have much, much closer scrutiny, even questioning the judges on certain things,” Justice Alice Resnick said. “If they put in eight hours in a day, that would mean requiring some verification of it.”
“We need more scrutiny of those [payroll] reports. If we had it, this situation would not have arisen,” Justice Alice Resnick said.
Justice Alice Resnick said she doesn’t know a lot about the daily operation of the system because Chief Justice Thomas Moyer oversees it rather than the entire court. The state constitution gives Chief Justice Thomas Moyer responsibility for the visiting judge system. However, she suggested that the Supreme Court might want to consider setting a fixed fee paid to visiting judges based on the case.
Some bills submitted by Judge Stephen Yarbrough, a former domestic relations and common please court judge in Lucas County, offer an example of the lack of court oversight to which critics refered.
Judge Stephen Yarbrough Double-billing the Surpeme Court
State records reviewed by The Blade show the traveling judge double-billed the Supreme Court at least 13 ½ days since the beginning 1998 for a total of $5,327. Data entry errors by court staff or computer problems netted him $1,656 more, records show.
Judge Stephen Yarbrough, 54, would not comment for this story because he is facing criminal complaints over the issue in Franklin County Municipal Court. The charges were filed by David Palmer, a former Maumee resident and a frequent critic of the judicial system.
Columbus attorney Michael Close, who is representing Judge Stephen Yarbrough, claims any double-billing is the result of bookkeeping errors [Of course it was Mike!]. State records show the judge has repaid the high court $2,340 for some of the overbillings.
“Certainly, nothing that I’ve seen approaches anything that looks like anything criminal,” Mr. Close said.
Judge Stephen Yarbrough has been one of the most active visiting judges in the stat during the last few years, Supreme Court records show. Last year, the judge earned $117,686 - $17,000 more than the common please judges who were elected to the bench earned for the year.
Records for the last 1 ½ years show he usually bills the state for working Saturdays and occasionally Sundays, which explains why he earned more than his elected counterparts. State records show that in February, he billed the court on all but three days.
Despite some of the recent attention Judge Stephen Yarbrough and other visiting judges have received, Lucas County judges and court officials say they’re needed to help handle heavy caseloads.
In Lucas County Common Pleas Court, 5,101 civil suits were filed last year and 2,009 criminal prosecutions. Those cases are distributed among the court’s 10 judges, who then must guide them through the system.
Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Frederick McDonald, who is serving a term as the court’s administrative judge, said visiting judges help relieve the pressure by handling civil cases or trying criminal trials. Lucas County has a visiting judge on duty nearly every week of the year.
Counties are responsible for the food-and-hotel expenses of visiting judges [also mileage], but the Supreme Court is responsible for policing the compensation reports submitted by the judges.
The sloppy record-0keeping and lack of Supreme Court oversight of visiting judges came to light after Mr. palmer, who calls himself the executive director of the one-man Committee to Expose Dishonest and Incompetent Attorneys and Judges, pored though numerous court documents using public records requests.
Mr. Palmer, who helps support himself on a disability stipend from the U.S. Army, is under investigation by the Supreme Court’s office of disciplinary counsel for allegations that he has practiced law without a license.
His findings garnered little reaction from the Supreme Court until he filed criminal complaints in April and May against nine visiting judges, including Judge Stephen Yarbrough and Judge Richard McQuade, in Franklin County Municipal Court.
One criminal charge against Judge Stephen Yarbrough was dropped Thursday, but others are pending. Another hearing on some of the complaints is scheduled for Wednesday.
It’s not the first time Mr. Palmer, who now lives in Powell, Ohio, has gone after some of the same judges. After the complaints were filed, Judge Richard McQuade said Mr. Palmer has sued him repeatedly in various jurisdictions because he was unhappy with the results of lawsuits over which he presided [truth is documentary evidence proving he’s a serial thief].
Judge Richard McQuade said any double-billings were the result of mistakes [all 21 of them?] he made while filling out his compensation reports and inadvertent.
“I have never double-billed for a day [False – collected twofers at least 2o times],” Judge Richard McQuade said after Mr. Palmer filed criminal complaints against him.
“I don’t practice it and I never would [Liar!],” Judge Richard McQuade said.
Supreme Court records reviewed by The Blade, show cases of double-billing by Judge Richard McQuade since the beginning of 1998. In April 1998, Judge Richard McQuade billed for April 9 for work in two counties [8 hours for each]. -
Judge Richard McQuade said he made a mistake when filling out the report, an error that was caught by the Supreme Court [false because he was paid and never repaid the state].
Mr. Palmer said he filed the criminal complaints after little response from the Surpeme Court or the state auditor’s office, which he notified of the double-billing by letter in July 1998.
But after reporters began to examine Mr. Palmer’s allegations last month, D. Michael Grodhaus, chief legal counsel to state Auditor Jim Petro, said visiting judges should only get paid the hours they work and that the auditor’s office would confer with the Supreme Court.
On Thursday, Mr. Petro discussed the matter with Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, who agreed that such a review should move forward. Mr. Grodhaus said the scope of that review has not been determined.
“We want to make sure their billing system for visiting judges is sound, so that these kinds of allegations will not happen again,” Mr. Grodhaus said.
In the wake of Mr. Palmer’s allegations and media inquires, the court has asked some visiting judges for reimbursements. Among those who have written check to the state, in addition to Judge Stephen Yarbrough: William Chinnock of Westlake, Harry Hanna of Cleveland, Judith Cross of Medina County, Lawrence Grey of Lexington and Dominick Olivito of Steubenville have reimbursed the court either because they double-billed or were overcompensated by the court.
Whether or not criminal charges against any of the judges are justified, the resulting media scrutiny has shown that visiting judges are largely unsupervised and that their pay depends on their honesty.
Jean Atkin, administrator of the Lucas County Common Pleas Court, said some local ground rules are lad down to visiting judges who serve the court, but they turn in their own compensation sheets to the Surpeme Court.
“In terms of the actual hours they spend, we don’t have any actual mechanism in terms of a time sheet or time clock,” Ms. Atkins said. “Plus, we don’t keep track of them when they’re here until 10 o’clock at night waiting for a jury [once in a great moon!], so we don’t have specific information at both ends of the scale.”
Chief Justice Thomas Moyer acknowledged that judges are billing for work in counties across the state when they are working at home. He said a new compensation report form that’s being prepared by the court will require judges to indicate specifically if they are in a trial at a county courthouse or working at home reviewing files.
“There is no way we can monitor the fact that they have worked at home or not, or even in the courtroom,” Chief Justice Thomas Moyer said. “A judge can be in a courtroom for half a day and go home and charge for a full day. But unless we check with the local court – which we don’t do [Why not?] – we rely on the judge being honest.”
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